


sinnerman

by edvic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity, Falling In Love, Immortality, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Non-Explicit, Post-Canon, Time Travel, feelings are good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 20:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21214694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edvic/pseuds/edvic
Summary: When he wakes up, he’s no longer cold. He’s not in Mr Burkes’ room either....Tom wants things to change. He wants it so badly they do.





	sinnerman

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [DarkkBluee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkkBluee/pseuds/DarkkBluee) in the [October_Flash_Fest_Part_Two](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/October_Flash_Fest_Part_Two) collection. 

> Based on the prompt by DarkkBlueeL:
> 
> _A young Tom Riddle wishes for a better future and lands in the lap of post-war Harry Potter._  
It can be fluff, crack, or darkly obsessive take.
> 
> Thank you so much for this prompt, gave myself lots of feelings writing it. ♥  
Ps Wouldn't call anything in here explicit, but it does feature a short mention of masturbation.

It’s one of these days. He goes back to the tiny room above the shop that he doesn’t even dare call his. It’s Mr Burkes’ room, not his.

It’s cold. He’s pretty sure it’s snowing outside but he’s too tired to lift his head and look out the window. Instead, he curls on the bed, trying to accumulate all the body warmth he still has. Maybe he could use a spell. Maybe. If he wasn’t so tired.

School seems like a memory belonging to someone else already. Like a life he’s never really lived. His heart is so terribly heavy and yet, everything inside him feels dead. It’s ridiculous. It’d be even more if he wasn’t so cold.

If only, he thinks, if only there was someplace he could sleep through it. Someplace warm. 

***

When he wakes up, he’s no longer cold. He’s not in Mr Burkes’ room either.

At first, he feels paralyzed. He can’t move. His heart is beating fast but his muscles spasm in horror. He doesn’t know where he is. The sheets smell of flowers and soap.

“Hello,” he hears someone say. He can’t move his head and see if there’s someone else in the room. 

“I was wondering if you’ll wake up at all,” the voice says.

He opens his mouth, but no voice comes out. His throat is dry. His breath gets more shallow.

“Please, calm down,” the voice says. “I won’t harm you.”

It doesn’t make him feel any safer.

“I promise,” the voice says and something warm touches his hand. It moves up, to his elbow and arm and then his face. The touch is soft and caring and hesitant. No one has ever ever touched him like this, he thinks.

He sees a face at last. It's a face of a man who looks young, but whose eyes look old. He can't be much older than Tom but maybe he is. It's hard to tell.

"It really is you," the man says, looking at him carefully, studying. Tom feels anxious.

Then, his muscles spasm again and the tension leaves. He melts into the mattress. Whatever was keeping him in place is no longer there.

"You should drink something," the man says. He seems overly cautious in the way he's handling Tom.

It's all so odd. Tom yawns and covers his mouth. His hands move so slowly. Like they're not his own. Like he's watching them but not controlling.

He moves his feet. Suddenly, it seems funny. His fingers curl. He wants to laugh but he tries not to. It'd look weird. Like he's a madman.

Maybe he is, he thinks. Maybe that's how it ends. He thought it might.

The man is watching him closely again. Tom doesn't know what that look means. It makes him think of a judge, but not the kind he'd meet in a court. He's not sure. Maybe that's what god looks like. 

"Am I dead?" He says suddenly. His voice sounds hoarse.

The man keeps his gaze steady.

"Not yet," he says.

***

The house is in the middle of nowhere, Tom thinks the first time he gets up. The window faces North and there are mountains in the distance, but too far away to tell if there’s snow covering them. 

When he gets up for the second time though, the window is facing West and there’s a stormy sea mere meters away from it. 

When he gets up for the third time, the house is in a sleepy town. Tom sees a car - it’s nothing like the cars he remembers, but he guesses it has to be one - and a blue bicycle. He wants to feel the wind on his face, but the window doesn’t open. 

Wherever they really are, the man doesn’t want him to know.

The man visits him everyday. The hours of his visits change, but the hours of Tom’s meals are regular. And they’re always warm. Pretty tasty too.

He can’t find his wand and the man never has one on him either, but when Tom tries to switch the light on without getting up from his bed, it works. He tries the window too, but with no success. There are limitations and he’s trying to figure them out.

Not that he’s going anywhere. Clearly, he’s being held captive. He doesn’t really feel like a prisoner, but maybe he is one.

On the fourth day, the man brings him books. Muggle ones, but Tom doesn’t mind. Then, two weeks in, the man brings him parchment, quills and ink. He asks if Tom needs anything. Tom says he’d like a notebook. The next day, he gets one.

“I’d like to open the window,” he says one evening. They’re by the sea again.

“You can’t,” the man says. “Not yet.”

***

The man doesn’t open the window, but he takes Tom on a walk.

It’s raining but Tom doesn’t mind. He smiles when the rain hits his face. He keeps his eyes closed for a long moment and tries not to think.

When he sees the world again, the man is watching. Judging. 

Is it Fate, Tom wonders. He doesn’t think the man is god himself.

They walk along the shoreline. Tom can see a lighthouse, but it’s far away. There are no sounds around them apart from the rain, the sea, the wind and their steps on the wet sand. Tom thinks he’d want to take his shoes off and run into the cold water. The sea used to scare him when he was a child, but now it makes him think of an embrace.

“What’s your name?” He asks the man when they sit down. The man has made sandwiches with cheese.

There’s a pause and the man gives Tom one of his long looks. In the rain, his eyes make Tom think of seaweed or maybe shipwrecks.

“Don’t you know?” The man says in the end.

***

Maybe he’s seen the man before, he thinks. He doesn’t know where and when. But maybe he has. There is something familiar about him. Maybe it was in a dream.

***

The man lets him leave the room when he’s not around. 

“But not the house,” the man says, even though he doesn’t need to. Tom’s stopped trying to open the window a while ago.

It’s been seventy-three days since he woke up.

At first, he doesn’t feel the need to walk around the house, but the man tries to encourage him. He asks what kind of music does Tom like. Or maybe if he wants to watch TV. 

Tom doesn’t know much about TV and when they do watch it together, sitting in the two armchairs opposite each other and leaving the couch empty, he feels baffled most of the time. He’s not really into reality shows. But he likes _Mindhunter_. It seems to amuse the man.

***

He writes a lot. At first he doesn’t know what to write about, but once he starts he can’t stop. He writes about his mother, because it hurts the most. Then about the orphanage. Then his father. When he writes about the school, he doesn’t feel miserable. But when he writes about the cold on Knockturn Alley, he does.

He sits by the window in the living room and watches the sea or the distant mountains or the small town. He’s not sure if they’re real, but does it really matter?

Some days the man is there too. He cooks. He reads. He works sometimes, but Tom doesn’t know what on. The man keeps to himself.

“I like the sea,” Tom says one day. 

The man looks at him from across the room. Behind the glasses, his eyes are studying him again. 

“Would you like to stay?” The man says.

Tom nods. His fingers tighten on the quill. In anticipation, he thinks.

The man looks at him. Then, he goes back to his book.

***

Tom masturbates in the shower. It’s methodical and efficient and clean. He likes to feel fresh going to bed. He knows what he likes and doesn’t think about anything in particular. Maybe about Abraxas, some days. Abraxas with his smirk and his strong arms. He was the most obnoxious person in their class, but Tom went to every single Quidditch match to watch him fly. He didn’t even like that stupid game.

And sometimes, he thinks about Mr Roberts, the baker. During his last summer at the orphanage Tom went there every day. Mr Roberts had a wife and three daughters and his hands were large and calloused. Tom likes to wonder how they’d feel on his skin. 

And then, some days, he thinks about the man. He doesn’t have arms like Abraxas or hands like Mr Roberts, but Tom thinks he likes his thighs. There’s a pair of jeans the man wears often that makes them look nice. Strong. When he caught Tom staring, he said he could buy him a pair too. But Tom doesn’t want jeans. He thinks he’d look ridiculous.

***

When he wakes up, they’re still by the sea. The man buys a book about fishing.

***

The man isn’t his first kiss. His first kiss was Orion Black and Tom remembers vividly how terrified he was that someone might see them.

He’s not scared now. No one can see them. He thinks the man wouldn’t care either way. And so Tom feels safer too.

The man tastes like vanilla ice cream and coffee because they had it for dessert. Tom doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but the man seems to be thinking for the two of them. He takes Tom’s hands and places them on his arms. They’re sitting on the couch. The man’s hands are on Tom’s face and they feel tender. In turn, it all makes Tom feel warm and like his shirt is too tight. It’s a little too much. He can feel his lips tremble when the man breathes.

“Who are you?” He says. Or maybe he only thinks it.

“Does it matter?” The man says. His thumb strokes Tom’s cheek and this too makes him shiver.

He closes his eyes. Maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter where they are. Or when. So maybe who they are doesn’t matter either.

He lets the man kiss him again. His breath hitches. He thinks if he knew the man’s name, this would be the time to say it.

***

He finds a picture in the kitchen. Quite a few of them, actually. The man lets him cook and they’re all there on the fridge.

There’s the man, younger and at Hogwarts. A child. He was in Gryffindor and Tom thinks it doesn’t make sense. The man seems like a Hufflepuff to him. Or maybe a Ravenclaw.

Then there’s a man that looks like a slightly different version of Tom’s man. And there’s a woman who has the man’s eyes. There’s a man who could be Orion Black if Orion Black had long hair.

A girl with red hair. Then a boy. A man with a scar on his face and a boy with hair pink like bubblegum. Tom’s man back in school, then a group picture. And another one, without the man but with Minerva McGonagall. She’s so much older Tom barely recognizes her. He sees Alastor Moody too. He’s missing an eye and a bit of his nose.

Tom makes the dinner and doesn’t ask. He thinks instead.

He doesn’t think he’s dead anymore.

***

The man lets him read a newspaper. It’s a Muggle one but Tom doesn’t mind terribly. Most of the news doesn’t mean anything to him either way. It’s been over a hundred years since he had a chance to catch up.

***

“I killed you,” the man says one day. They’re on the beach and the sun is setting.

“And yet I’m still alive,” Tom says. He breathes the evening air in and then lets it out. 

He keeps his head on the man’s shoulder.

“I’m glad you are,” the man says. He keeps Tom’s hand in his own.

Tom thinks the man regrets whatever he’s done to him. But he thinks he might’ve deserved it too. 

***

They don’t sleep together but then they do. Tom keeps his shirt on, but the man doesn’t. There’s graying hair on his chest and Tom likes it a lot. He watches the man breathe at night. Sometimes, he dares to kiss his arm.

***

“What’s my purpose here?” He says.

The man stops digging the pit he’s been working on. They’ve been trying to start a vegetable garden, but the soil seems too dry. 

“What do you mean?” The man says.

“You brought me here.”

The man looks at him. For the first time, Tom thinks the man doesn’t know what to do with him.

“I did not,” the man says in the end.

“But you kept me here.”

Tom looks at the house and the man does too. They’ve painted the walls blue last summer.

“I did,” the man says.

He’s been growing a beard and it makes reading his face harder. Tom doesn’t know what the man feels and so he’s not sure about his own feelings either. Oddly, these used to align. 

“So am I free to go?” He says. It dawns on him suddenly.

The man is still looking at him. There’s dirt on his hands and his shirt.

The silence feels endless, but then the man says:

“You are.”

***

And so he goes. He takes his notebook and his quill and a map so he can come back. The man tells him how to find a way, but doesn't insist that he has to. The sea is real but then it’s not. There’s snow on the mountaintops he’s seen before, but he can’t find the little town and the blue bicycle.

He doesn’t have his wand but he’s learned to live without it. It’s a challenge. He likes it. Days pass and he thinks a lot. About himself and about the man. He thinks about his mother too and it still hurts but not like it used to. There's more regret than anger in him.

He follows the birds going South. He sleeps under the stars and wonders if the man is watching them too. He collects herbs and studies winds. He doesn’t have a watch but he learns to guess time in other ways.

When the day comes, he visits London. No one recognizes him. He doesn't recognize anyone either. There’s a library and there’s a book he’s been meaning to read. He finds his name in it. Nothing surprises him. He feels sorry, but not terribly. In the end, it's not him. Not really.

Then, he finds the man’s name. He sees the same pictures he’s seen on the man’s fridge. He sees new ones too. The man with the Minister of Magic and with Dumbledore. The house the man used to live in. The broomstick he used to fly. Tom reads it all, but somehow, the man from the book doesn’t seem like his man at all. Like the name doesn’t match the person.

Tom thinks he knows something about it.

***

He comes back in the middle of winter. There’s snow all around the house and the sea is calm. Tom looks at it for a long moment before he goes back on the path. 

There’s a light above the front door and Tom wonders if the man kept it on for him. He hopes he did.

He has his own keys. For the first time, he feels like coming back home. He recognizes the blue paint and the sleepy garden. He takes off his shoes and leaves his bag next to them. The snow on his coat is melting already.

When he walks into the room, the man is reading. He’s sitting in the armchair Tom claimed as his own. It makes him feel something, but he can’t name it. He can't find a word for it. Perhaps it makes him feel like he belongs. He doesn’t want to dwell on it. Instead, he looks at the man.

He doesn’t seem older or younger. His beard is not as long as Tom remembers it. His brows are furrowed. Tom wonders what he’s reading. 

He takes a few steps closer and wraps his arms around the man. At first, the man stills, like an animal caught by surprise and Tom understands. He knows so much more now. Once the man turns and sees Tom’s face, it all goes away, like clouds on a windy summer day.

“You weren’t expecting me,” Tom says, making himself a place on the man’s lap. The man is wearing a sweater with a black dragon on it. It looks old and worn out, but when Tom touches it, it’s nicely soft.

“I was waiting for you every single day since you left,” the man says. He’s smiling and it makes Tom warm. He doesn’t know if he believes what the man says, but he thinks he wants to. And that he should. Because he’s been missing the man every single day since he left too.

He doesn’t say it out loud. He hopes the man knows anyway.

***

“I want to be an undertaker,” he says. They’re eating breakfast and the man chokes on his coffee.

“Do you?” The man says. He wipes the spilled coffee off the table.

“I won’t die,” he says. “Don’t you think it’s funny?”

“It is,” the man agrees. He looks very handsome with the beard, Tom thinks.

“You know what’d be funnier though?” Tom says. 

The man looks at him but doesn’t ask.

“If you’d work with me,” he says and smiles. He can’t help it.

Slowly, the man smiles too.

**Author's Note:**

> No idea what happened here, but I love it. Hope you do too.


End file.
